Musical Talent
by ZacharyOCW
Summary: Codie Riedo is a fox that's always had a dream of moving to the city of rock and roll. So when he turns 18 he flies to the other side of the world to become a musician. After trouble of finding a band what will Codie do?
1. Chapter 1

"I've always dreamed that at the age of 18 I'll move to Elstow in the United Kingdom, Aka the city of rock and roll, to become a musician. Go to Rock and Roll Park and find a band, or make one I don't care. I always told my parents this, my friends this. So I never really made any friends back in the US so when I did move I wouldn't miss anyone. I did have some friends that really would miss me though. They even came with me to the airport and said there goodbyes. My parents came as well and said their goodbyes. When they were done I entered the plane with my guitar in hand.

So that's the context of this story. And I know what your asking, why write a book about this Codie? Oh by the way, my name's Codie Riedo. A fox from a small town called Algona, Iowa. Okay anyways, why write a book about this Codie? Well the reason is because I want to record this. Me becoming a musician just like Angus Scattergood, and also that new, dog, guy everyone keeps talking about. Well anyways, I'm just going to record every day in this book like a teenage girl's diary. Okay, see you next time I write!"

I close my book and stow it in my backpack. I look outside the plane window, we were circling the city getting ready to land. The plane shudders and shakes as it makes straightens out and makes it descent. The plane touches down on the asphalt leaving skid marks. The engine's blast in reverse to slow down the beast and eventually we slow down to a taxing pace. I smile and put my earbuds on.

(Space Junk by Wang Chung is played)

The plane docks to the airport and everybody exits the vessel. I grab my guitar and follow them. I push out of the door and into the airport while silently drumming my fingers to the beat of the music.

After getting my luggage I finally get out of the airport. The new sights and smells were gorgeous! The cars that went by and the signs and posters that were everywhere. It was just like I imagined. I didn't know what to do first, go to my apartment to get some sleep and deal with the jet lag or go to Rock and Roll Park? I thought about it for a complete second. Rock and Roll Park. I start to run over there, music blaring in my ears. About there! I see the sta- shopping cart!

Bang! I crash into the cart at high speed almost knocking it over. My earbuds fly off and go into a open drain. "Crap." I say. I look around hoping nobody saw, seeing no one I quickly put the shopping cart back and awkwardly go back to where I was going. I go up the steps to Rock and Roll Park to be greeted by music. I walk through the park listening to every song a band is playing.

"...Woooooooah o' woah sweet child o' miiiiiiine..."

"...Never going to give you up..."

"...It's the final countdown!..."

"...Take me down to Paradise City where the grass is gr..."

"...It's the eye of the tiger!..."

"..."

"Never made it as a wise man.. I couldn't cut it as a..."

Wait, what was that last one? "I tried living as a blind ma-" No not that one. "...". An empty lot? I've never heard of such thing. I look over to the lot just to see a band getting ready to perform. Oh... never mind. I walk through the park, no band in need of a guitar player.

The next day, no one.

The day after that, no one.

The day after the day after that, no one.

The day after the day after the day after that, no one.

The day after the day after the day after the day after that:

"Not much to say.. Umm I haven't found a band yet. I'm gonna try one more time but I'm thinking of starting my own band now. I don't even know anybody! How am I supposed to make a band!"

I grit my teeth and throw the journal away. "God, who would know finding a freaking band to join would be so hard? Ugh!" I sat there on my couch, calming myself down by strumming my guitar lightly until it all just washed away and I was playing a song. _Snap!_ A string broke. I curse under my breath. I groan and reach for my box with spare parts.

I pull out the string in my guitar and start to put the new one in. Listening to the trams go past I realize I hear another guitar strumming.

"Oh I am searching... trying to find my luck... because I'm just sitting here... on a city street. Trying to make a penny or two... Oo Oo..." I quickly crawl to the window. Under it was a vixen playing a guitar and singing her song. It was actually pretty good, I got distracted from listening to it that I knocked a plant pot that was on the ledge over, luckily I caught it before it got out of my reach only having a couple of pieces of dirt float down.

I sigh with relief, and then it slips out of my hand. Spiraling down and smashing against the concrete, "Holy Sugared Honey Iced Tea!" She quickly looks up to where the source was and laughs lightly, "Ha-umm... This.. this isn't the potted plant I ordered."

I blush from embarrassment. "I am... So sorry... Umm just wait a second," I go back into my room, hesitating for a second before quickly running out the door while I'm putting my jacket on. I quickly go down the stairs and round the corner. She was standing there waiting with her hands on her hips. I look down at the mess that's on the floor, "Ah crap..." I look up at her, "Umm hi. I'm Codie." I say, holding out my hand. She shakes it.

"I'm Crystal."

I look around awkwardly, "So umm... What can I do?"

"I don't know, all I know is that you nearly dropped a pot on my head."

"I know, I know.." I ponder for a second, I look behind her to see her guitar case, "Ah! Here wait a second." I run upstairs and grab my guitar after fixing it quickly. I run back downstairs.

"Your giving me your guitar?" She asks, seeing my guitar.

"No, I'm going to help you make money here," I say pointing where she was sitting.

"You-your going to help me do this?" She laughs.

"Seriously, I am."

She looks me over, "Okay, I won't take up a chance to make some money." She sits down where she was earlier.

I sit down beside her. "So what song we doing?" I ask.

"Just do what you feel like, we'll find something." And that's what we did. I tried some songs, she tried some songs, they didn't seem to work so we did some free style and it seemed to work. We played for what? Two or three hours?

I was lost in the song we were playing. "Hey!" I look up, there was a wolf coming down the sidewalk. Was he pointing at me?

"Tyler?" Crystal says, quickly getting up.

"Who's this?" He yells, pointing at me. I stand up. "Is this that Noah guy?"

"Me? M-"

"Yeah you!" He yells.

"Tyler leave him alone." Crystal begs.

"You can't tell me what to do!" He screams and shoves her to the wall, she lands on her guitar making a loud snap as it breaks.

"Dude!" I say reaching to pick Crystal up.

"Stay back!" He yells, pushing me onto the street. At this time a large crowd has started to form.

"Hey dude.. Calm down." I say fearfully. Cars racing past me.

"Are you telling me what to do? I own this town! You can't tell me what to do!" He shoves me one more time, I'm in hard traffic now. "You can't tell me what to do! I'll beat you down till you'll be begging for your momma! Do you want me t-"

Ring Ring Ring! The tram goes by, right between me him. As soon as it started it ende- Oh crap I'm in the air! I get thrown back to the sidewalk. I quickly get up, staring right at him. He starts to walk back towards me when a bus goes past, blocking him from me. Without thinking I grab Crystal's arm and help her get up as quickly as I can. "Where are we going?" She asks drowsily. I don't respond and quickly pick up our other guitars with my other hand.

"HEY! Where are you taking here!" Footsteps start thundering towards me.

"Hey get down!" "Put the weapon away!" "Get the heck down!" "He-" Bzzt! I sit Crystal down on the steps, putting the guitars near her. I turn around to the scene. It was like a scene from a movie, Tyler is tased on the ground. An officer is sitting on the ground with a broken piece of wood near him. One officer was putting his taser away. The last officer was running to put the cuffs on Tyler. More police cars were showing up, to help with the arrest and control the civilians.

Crystal was out of it, in a tired daze, so I put her on my small couch. The paramedics said she'll be fine and didn't take her to the hospital.

I talked to the police for about an hour. Names, what happened, who was involved, and that type of stuff. When I was done I was worn out. I walked into my apartment, threw my jacket on the table and flopped on my bed. Falling asleep almost instantly.

 **God, finally it's done! This was tiring but I got it done now. Okay context now: I saw the movie and was like huh. This is an interesting world, I'll make something out of this. So I've been working on this since the last chapter post. Okay, I just want to post this now so I'm gonna wrap this up. As always, this is ZacharyOCW, signing off!**


	2. Chapter 2

I groggily wake up, the full moon shining in the room. I start to grab for my guitar by instinct when I realize I'm touching thin air. My brain starts to focus on what's happening. I'm on a couch, I don't know who's. Wait, who's couch was this? The last thing I remember was.. I'm suddenly on my feet, eyes wide. Tyler, I'm at Tyler's house!

I curse under my breath, I immediately go to the door with the peep-hole in it. I put my hand on the doorknob when I realize I don't have my guitar. I look around the room not seeing it anywhere in plain sight. I turn on the light and start rummaging the cupboards as quickly and quietly as possible. "What happened when I went out?" I think to myself as I'm rummaging, "What happened to Codie?" I look through the contents of the cupboards, pots, pans. I go to the next one. Just food. I start to go to the next one when I trip on something.

I stumble and land on the floor. I silently curse and look at what I tripped on. A book? I didn't know Tyler read any books. I pick it up and open it. Inside was a journal, I read it until I reach day seven.

"Day two, I looked around at Rock and Roll Park, I still didn't find anyone. Better luck tomorrow hopefully."

"Day three, I still haven't seen anyone at Rock and Roll Park. Maybe if I start my own band I'll call it 'The Crusher' or something. Nah that's too cheesy. I don't think I'll make one anyways."

"Day four, No luck yet. I'm starting to miss my family back in the US. I would call but international phone calls are expensive. Maybe I'll do it the old fashioned way and write a letter."

I read on until it reached day seven, "Not much to say.. Umm I haven't found a band yet. I'm gonna try one more time but I'm thinking of starting my own band now. I don't even know anybody! How am I supposed to make a band!" The page has marking in it as if some water has dripped on it. "Those are tears." I think to myself. I put the book down and stand up from my crisscross state.

I walk up to the bedroom door. "If that was Codie's journal, this should be Codie's apartment right?" I whisper to myself, putting my hand on the doorknob and turn it slowly. The door creaks open. Light finds its way into the room and I start to see the shape of a bed. The lump in it is impossible to tell who was inside though. Then the lump moves and a bushy red tail pops out of the covers. I sigh with relief and close the door again. It's Codie's apartment. I sigh an flop back on the couch. Still tired, I yawn and curl up, slowly fall back asleep with a smile on my face.

I wake up from my dreamless sleep, mumbling in my half-asleep state. I pull my tail closer to me and open my eyes. It was morning, sunlight seeping through the windows. I drearily look around and see Codie sitting at the kitchen table eating a fruit salad. "You can have some if you want," He says pointing at the salad.

I sit up and rub my eye. "Sure, I'd like that." I answer. He stands up and gets an already made fruit salad from the fridge. I sit at the table and grab a plastic fork. "So Codie," I say, "what the heck happened yesterday?"

"Well after you blacked out that Tyler guy tried to fight me, he threw me into traffic and I almost got hit." He explains.

"Really?"

He laughs a bit, "Yeah it was crazy, then the tram came along and he used that to surprise me and threw me back to sidewalk."

"He threw you back to the sidewalk?" I ask not believing.

"Yeah, he did."

"No way."

"Yes way," He says, I don't believe him and give him a stare. "Look, after that he got distracted by a bus and then I got you out of there." He says, taking a bite.

"That's it? I was expecting a story how you fought him off with your bare hands."

"Nah, nothing like that. These cops took care of if, got there just in time." Codie says just as the newspaper comes through the mail slot.

"Wow, your apartment has a mail slot. I thought only houses had those." I comment as he gets up and picks up the newspaper.

"Yeah, this building is old and only has two stor-" He looks at the newspaper. "..On the topic of those cops.." He plops the newspaper down so I can see it. On the front page it reads 'Three Police Officers Found Dead After Recent Arrest'.

I look up at Codie, I can't help but having fear in his eyes. "Who is Tyler?" Codie asks sitting down.

I look at Codie, his eyes with seriousness in them. "Well umm.. He's my ex-boyfriend.. We dated for about a month until he started.. Well you know.." He had the look of disgrace on him. "Then I dropped him, he liked to keep a lot of things secret, but I never thought he would kill someone, let alone three people."

"It doesn't make any sense, he went to prison, I saw him get put in the car." He says pacing the room. He sits back in his chair defeated. "What am I gonna do?" He puts his fingers to his temple's.

We sit there for a minute until I'm sick with the silence. I stand up and go into Codie's room and look for my guitar, and I find it split in half. I curse and hit the floor with my fist. I hesitantly pick up Codie's guitar and strum it trying to ignore the weird shape. My arm keeps hitting the edge of the guitar and it's just wonky in general. I walk back to Codie and put the guitar in his hand. He looks up at me confused. "Play it." He looks at me for a couple more seconds before picking up his guitar and starts to strum it.

The beat to the song was catchy. I sit down and listen to the song, I close my eyes and drum my fingers against the table.

 **18 Hours Later**

It was long after dusk and a fresh bag of popcorn was cooking in the microwave for the movie that was playing on the small television. I was just turning 1 AM and I'm wrapped up tightly in a blanket on the foldout-bed that Codie has while watching an old horror movie. Codie was laying by me wrapped up in a different blanket.

"Wow, you really don't like horror movies," Codie teases.

"No I don't. They're freaky, especially the zombie ones." I say, yawning loudly.

"You get used to them after a while, me and my brother used to watch horror movies all the time." I see his expression change quickly but he hides it away quickly. The microwave beeps and he kicks his blanket on the ground and goes get the popcorn.

He comes with a heavenly smelling bag of popcorn and takes a bite of some. He holds the bag to me. "You want some?" He asks. I put my hand in and take some. I eat the tasty substance just as a loud scream from the movie pierces the room and I almost choke on it. "Hey all you alright?" Codie asks.

"I'm fine." I say through my coughs.

"Okay.." He says unsure of me. I swallow the popcorn, it not getting caught in my throat again. I look at the popcorn bag and I can't help myself taking another bite. I put the food in my mouth and watch the movie. The classical action on the black and white screen. The protagonist was driving his car through a horde of zombie. I eat another handful of popcorn. The car was now driving up a bridge and the protagonist jumps out. Why did he- boom! The car flies through a helicopter. This is an actually good movie. I start to laugh when I realize I can't breath.

"Hey Crystal, are you alright?" Codie asks. I try to reply but nothing comes out. Alarm comes into his eyes when he realizes what's going on. "Ah no.. ah crap.. Umm what do you do again?" He pats my back and nothing happens. He pats again nothing happens. He pats my back harder this time, nothing happens.

Wow, I'm really tired. My eyes start to close but I fight to stay awake. He pats my back as hard as he can and the popcorn flies out. I gasp for air and my eyes start to fill with tears, I've never had a near-death experience before. "Your okay, your okay." Codie says to me. I start to calm down.

"Crystal you're okay, you're okay, it's okay." I feel weak and I close my eyes. I fall asleep to Codie's voice calming me down.


End file.
